Battle of France dedicated thread

[Marshall_Stack]

Any more stories on the French Hawks? I tried Google but didn't find much except that they held their own.

 

[delcyros]

The Hawk 75 is in reputation for achieving the western allies first aerial dogfight victory on sept. 8th, 1939. An intruder flight of five Hawk 75-1 from Groupe de Chasse II/4 claimed two Bf-109. Altough these appear as model -E in literature, the official loss list note the loss of two -109D1. The Hawk-75-1 is certainly superior to the 109d.

Edmond Marin La Meslée from Groupe de Chasse I/5 is the most successful allied pilot of the period to june 1940, he exclusively flew the Hawk 75-2. His first aerial victory over a german Do-17 was on january, 18th, 1940, then still under the wings of his mentor Captn. Accard, who recognized La Meslées potential. In only five days in may 1940 he downed nine german planes, including three Ju-87B in a single sortie.
At the end of hostilities, La Meslée was appointed commander of Groupe de Chasse I/5, he made 101 combat sorties, beeing the first allied triple ace with 15 confirmed and 5 unconfrmed aerial victories.

11.01.40 (2) Do 17 Longwy [54]
12.05.40 (1) Ju 87 Bouillon
12.05.40 (1) Ju 87 Pouru St-Rémy [08]
12.05.40 (1) Ju 87 Ste-Cécile
13.05.40 (1) Bf 109 Stonne [08]
15.05.40 (7) Hs 126 Vendresse [08]
16.05.40 (9) Do 215 Rethel [08]
18.05.40 (3) He 111 Rethel [08]
18.05.40 (5) He 111 Ponsart [51]
18.05.40 (5) He 111 Laon [02]
19.05.40 (2) He 111 Hesse [55]
24.05.40 (1) Hs 126 St-Loup-Terrier [08]
25.05.40 (4) Hs 126 Boult-aux-Bois [08]
26.05.40 (9) He 111 Tannay [08]
03.06.40 (4) Hs 126 Sommauthe [08]
10.06.40 (5) Ju 88 Chatillon sur Bar [08]

 

[Soundbreaker Welch?]

Arsenal VG 33.

Is that B W picture of an Arsenal VG 33? It reminds me of a Macchi.

Comiso, if you look, I have two posts in a row, so I thought I woud put some Grinning German Generals to cover it up.

 

[comiso90]

Is that B W picture of an Arsenal VG 33? It reminds me of a Macchi.

Comiso, if you look, I have two posts in a row, so I thought I woud put some Grinning German Generals to cover it up.

ahhh..

I thought u were referring to my post of the Battle of France video...

.

 

[Civettone]

It was designed from scratch in 1938/39

The VG-33 wasn't exactly designed from scratch. It was directly derived from the VG-30 of 1936.

Other prototypes included the VG 39 with a 1280 hp engine, achieving 655 Km/h early in 1940 despite an increased armement of 1 20mm and 6 7.5mm LMG.

Not only was the VG-39 a promising fighter, it was one of the most beautiful fighters ever designed. Judge for yourself:

 

[delcyros]

An particularely interesting preliminary read of BoF can be found here:

THE FRENCH AIR FORCE

enjoi!

 

[HoHun]

Hi Delcyros,

>THE FRENCH AIR FORCE

"The French Air Force In 1940 - Was It Defeated by the Luftwaffe or by Politics?"

Interesting summary, thanks!

Here is a thread with a slightly controversial discussion of the topic which might be described (preliminarily) as:

The French Air Force In 1940 - Was It Defeated At All?"

Board Message

I think Yves made some interesting points over there and was a bit disappointed the discussion ended so quickly ...

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[Hop]

What I've read, from Yves and other sources, is that the French air force was re-equipping with modern fighters rather quickly.

I think that was a large part of the problem.

It takes time to convert from one type to another, not just (or even) for the pilots, but the ground crews, support staff, etc. I wonder what the spares situation was like, for example. As Murray said:

"The French air force, unfortunately, was
in great disarray as it was transitioning to a newer generation of aircraft (as had the
Luftwaffe in 1937-38 and the RAF in 1938-39 with similar results) . The French
were, in fact, having considerable difficulty in equipping squadrons with new
aircraft as well as maintaining operational ready rates. In early 1940, some French
squadrons ran in-commission rates of barely 40 percent, and the pressure of
operations only compounded their difficulties"

I wonder if the French would have done better fighting with their older aircraft, rather than trying to switch to newer types during the battle?

As to the Hs 404, whilst the RAF really liked the cannon, they had to do some redesign work to get it reliable, as did the US.

 

[Kurfürst]

It would be fairer to say the RAF had issues making a working license copy of the cannon, which hardly can be blamed on the original Hispano which worked just fine in the solid engine installations it was designed for in the French air force. Only when the RAF attempted to (mis)use this rather big, gas-operated gun into the flimsy wings of the RAF`s s-e fighter the problems started. Nevertheless, British Hispanos worked well on the testing benches, even if less so in actual aircraft installations. This suggest the problem was with the installations and gun platforms themselves, rather than the gun. Simply to put, the Hispano was ill-suited for wing installations, but the British simply did not have any suitable aero engine that could mount a cannon, nor they had any domestic cannon design suiting their own concepts - experience with development of small-caliber guns in Britain seems to be rather limited for some reason, and they relied heavily of licensed foreign designs.

The US problems seem to be different, as Tony pointed out, for some rather silly administrative reasons, US quality control for the 20mm cannons simply 'sucked big time'.

As for Murray, he has wonderful set of data, and some very poor and often flawed analysis poured on the top of it.

 

[Glider]

It would be fairer to say the RAF had issues making a working license copy of the cannon, which hardly can be blamed on the original Hispano which worked just fine in the solid engine installations it was designed for in the French air force. Only when the RAF attempted to (mis)use this rather big, gas-operated gun into the flimsy wings of the RAF`s s-e fighter the problems started. Nevertheless, British Hispanos worked well on the testing benches, even if less so in actual aircraft installations. This suggest the problem was with the installations and gun platforms themselves, rather than the gun. Simply to put, the Hispano was ill-suited for wing installations, but the British simply did not have any suitable aero engine that could mount a cannon, nor they had any domestic cannon design suiting their own concepts - experience with development of small-caliber guns in Britain seems to be rather limited for some reason, and they relied heavily of licensed foreign designs.

The US problems seem to be different, as Tony pointed out, for some rather silly administrative reasons, US quality control for the 20mm cannons simply 'sucked big time'.

As for Murray, he has wonderful set of data, and some very poor and often flawed analysis poured on the top of it.

I am afraid that I have to disagree with some parts of this posting. There is no doubt that the British had difficulty getting the 20mm to work in the wings of the aircraft but that was down to a number of reasons.
A major one was mounting the gun on its side in the first Spitfire 1B. As a result its hardly a suprise that the feed didn't work once the aircraft had done a few manoeuvers stressing the ammo feed system in a way it was never designed for.
A second one was that the gun did need some modifications to make it reliable mainly around the breach. Soft firing was a major cause of jams and the British dealt with this by reducing the size of the chamber.
Thirdly the US guns were beautifully made, but didn't include any changes to the original French design making them very unreliable.

In 'Guns of the Royal Air Force 1939-1945' by G.F. Wallace - who was there - there is an account of British tests of the British and US Hispanos which took place early in 1942. The British were unhappy with initial supplies of the American-made guns: "there were frequent misfeeds and lightly struck cap stoppages, and the life of several small components was very short" so a comparative test between one British and three American guns was set up. The intention was to fire 5,000 rounds from each gun without replacing any components. "The British gun fired the full programme but the performance of the American guns was so bad that in each case the trial had to be abandoned before the 5,000 rounds had been fired." The British gun experienced 19 stoppages in firing 5,012 rounds. The American guns experienced 67 stoppages out of 4,092, 97 out of 3,705 and 94 out of 2,610 respectively. Incidentally, Wallace states that the US guns were "beautifully made and better finished than our own" and expressed surprise that although lightly struck caps were a major source of stoppages, even more frequent were mis-feeds

 

[AL Schlageter]

As for Murray, he has wonderful set of data, and some very poor and often flawed analysis poured on the top of it.

I just started reading the book now, so can you give examples of sections I should be leary of.

Weren't some of the German cannons based on Swiss designs.

 

[HoHun]

Hi Hop,

>What I've read, from Yves and other sources, is that the French air force was re-equipping with modern fighters rather quickly.

>I think that was a large part of the problem.

Hm, from Kirkland's article, the sortie ratios of the Armée de l'Air were so low that I'd not expect any problems with the transition to a newer type.

In fact, from Kirkland's article I'd say that an insufficient number of pilots was the main problem of the Armée de l'Air. Unfortunately, he fails to quantify the pilot strength and gives only a very weak explanation for it.

I'd say if we accept the lack of pilots as a major problem, it seems to make sense to give them the best available aircraft material. It's my impression that generally, the improved capabilities of a new type tend to outweigh the lack of familiarity with that new type (ignoring teething troubles, but I'm not aware of any with the newer French aircraft).

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[delcyros]

Hi Henning,

A tempting and attractive idea but the things I don´t understand so far is that France indeed had the largest bulk of civil aviators in the world and spend more money in civil aviation than any other nation prior to ww2. As France had enough time to retrain it´s aviators in the phoney war, military pilot´s shortages were no unavoidable aspect.

Thanks for Your link but I cannot access the board, perhaps You can copy in Yves arguments?

best regards,
delc

 

[HoHun]

Hi Delcyros,

>Thanks for Your link but I cannot access the board, perhaps You can copy in Yves arguments?

To access the board, you can simply become a member - it's free:

Luftwaffe Experten Message Board (Powered by Invision Power Board)

(Too much stuff to reproduce it here ...)

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[delcyros]

Hi Delcyros,

>Thanks for Your link but I cannot access the board, perhaps You can copy in Yves arguments?

To access the board, you can simply become a member - it's free:

Luftwaffe Experten Message Board (Powered by Invision Power Board)

(Too much stuff to reproduce it here ...)

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

I tried but neither of my mail adresses was accepted on this forum.
However, it was worth a try.

 

[Kurfürst]

I am afraid that I have to disagree with some parts of this posting. There is no doubt that the British had difficulty getting the 20mm to work in the wings of the aircraft but that was down to a number of reasons.
A major one was mounting the gun on its side in the first Spitfire 1B. As a result its hardly a suprise that the feed didn't work once the aircraft had done a few manoeuvers stressing the ammo feed system in a way it was never designed for.
A second one was that the gun did need some modifications to make it reliable mainly around the breach. Soft firing was a major cause of jams and the British dealt with this by reducing the size of the chamber.
Thirdly the US guns were beautifully made, but didn't include any changes to the original French design making them very unreliable.

As I understand, the original french Hispano was designed to be fitted, literally bolted onto the engine block itself. Such mounting ensured a very rigid installation, given the 600kg or so engine. This was not available in the RAF`s wing installations, since wings are very much more flexible and lighter structures, and the Hispano has a very powerful recoil.

I`ve never seen anything to indicate the French had any sort of problems with this gun in this installation, as was claimed by some here, and it also would not make sense why the British would choose a gun to be bought that just didn`t work, there were lots of other guns on the market (Swiss Oerlikons in all sizes for example).. more likely they bought a gun that worked well in the original enviroment it was meant for, and then placed it into an enviroment it wasn`t meant for and then had to fix the problems that arose from those new circumstances.

It has to be remembered that British guns were licensed ones, with plans converted from a metric plans to imperial units, and the US guns were licensed versions of licensed guns. There was also a QC problem due to pure buerocratic reasons, since anything over .50 caliber was to satisfy the much more loose tolerances for artilerry instead of small caliber guns IIRC.

In any case, to me it seem the notion that the Hispano was a poor design that was in need of a 'fix' does not seem to be well-founded to me. Rather, it seems to have been mis-employed and mis-copied.

 

[Glider]

I`ve never seen anything to indicate the French had any sort of problems with this gun in this installation, as was claimed by some here, and it also would not make sense why the British would choose a gun to be bought that just didn`t work, there were lots of other guns on the market (Swiss Oerlikons in all sizes for example).. more likely they bought a gun that worked well in the original enviroment it was meant for, and then placed it into an enviroment it wasn`t meant for and then had to fix the problems that arose from those new circumstances..

I have to agree that I also do not know of any problems that the french had with the 20mm but the fact remain that the British did make modifications and the USA didn't. In the test mentioned in my earlier posting, the result clearly showed that the USA gun wasn't reliable and the British one was.

It has to be remembered that British guns were licensed ones, with plans converted from a metric plans to imperial units, and the US guns were licensed versions of licensed guns.

And what does this prove?

There was also a QC problem due to pure buerocratic reasons, since anything over .50 caliber was to satisfy the much more loose tolerances for artilerry instead of small caliber guns IIRC..

This has been mentioned a number of times but I am not seen any evidence to support it. In the test I mentioned above, there were a number of reccomendations made as to how to resolve the problem of the USA guns reliability and none of them mentioned the tolerances used in manufacture. They were all design issues. If you wish I can dig out the book and list them, but the point is already clear.
If you can support your statement I am happy to reconsider my position.

In any case, to me it seem the notion that the Hispano was a poor design that was in need of a 'fix' does not seem to be well-founded to me. Rather, it seems to have been mis-employed and mis-copied.

How do you come to this conclusion after the clear test results held in the USA? The is no doubt that the British gun with mods worked, and the USA one without them, didn't, how can you just ignore this?

 

[Hop]

I`ve never seen anything to indicate the French had any sort of problems with this gun in this installation, as was claimed by some here, and it also would not make sense why the British would choose a gun to be bought that just didn`t work, there were lots of other guns on the market (Swiss Oerlikons in all sizes for example).. more likely they bought a gun that worked well in the original enviroment it was meant for, and then placed it into an enviroment it wasn`t meant for and then had to fix the problems that arose from those new circumstances.

The British of course bought the Hispano before it was in use with the French air force. After having expressed an interest in 1936, the first gun was received from France in January 1937, and two more in March. At that point an order was placed, and work begun on a factory in the UK to make them.

As to French experience, I am not aware of anyone commenting on it. The claim on the LEMB was that the Finns found it unreliable in their MS406s.

It has to be remembered that British guns were licensed ones, with plans converted from a metric plans to imperial units, and the US guns were licensed versions of licensed guns.

No, the US licensed the guns direct from the French. They bought a batch from France, then the engineering drawings and information, and a licence to produce them in the US. In fact they ignored British advice on their experiences getting the gun to work, in particular that the chamber should be shortened to reduce the number of failed strikes on the primer.

 

[delcyros]

Regarding whether or not RAF Spitfires participated the Battle of Britain, I found this comment:

At the outbreak of the Second World War, the Mk I's were the mainstay of Fighter Command along with the Hurricane. When air support was needed in Norway and in France, Fighter Command sent only one squadron to Norway and ten to France.

The Supermarine Spitfire

Only 67 RAF Spitfires were lost in action. Had those exclusively been Spitfires operating from southeastern England (to Dunkirk), this would have been to high a loss rate for my beloved Spit.
The numbers lost seems more reasonable if the RAF deployed ten Spitfire squadrons on the continent. Still don´t know which units they were.

regards,
delc

 

[Glider]

Regarding whether or not RAF Spitfires participated the Battle of Britain, I found this comment:

At the outbreak of the Second World War, the Mk I's were the mainstay of Fighter Command along with the Hurricane. When air support was needed in Norway and in France, Fighter Command sent only one squadron to Norway and ten to France.

The Supermarine Spitfire

Only 67 RAF Spitfires were lost in action. Had those exclusively been Spitfires operating from southeastern England (to Dunkirk), this would have been to high a loss rate for my beloved Spit.
The numbers lost seems more reasonable if the RAF deployed ten Spitfire squadrons on the continent. Still don´t know which units they were.

regards,
delc

This has to be a mistake. No spits were sent to Norway but they did send one of Hurricanes. Also I am sure that ten squadrons of Spits in France would have been noticed.